the man cold!

Yep! THIS is what I am dealing with! I thought I had it bad when I was taking care of myself and Char and Bea when we all had this awful cold/flu with fevers and yucky stuff. Then when I thought I had been tested enough, Chris gets sick. Oh gosh! I was only being prepared to take care of him. :) I joke, but... these past few days have been crazy!
My profound conclusion...
I have decided that men are babies. :)

Celebrate

You know how we are getting OLDer! Well, I never really feel like it. Then I notice that my body is getting older. I am a healthy and active girl, but some things I just cant change with my bod. I decided to embrace my flaws and just get to know the me that I have. That inspired me to get a few of my friends together and ask Jessica for all of us to do some pictures. She took ours with her awesome creative style and I took hers with her camera and enjoyed every second of being behind a "real" camera! My friends are stunningly beautiful. It was so fun! The nature of our pictures were... boudoir pictures... for our husbands... as a gift. :) But then I thought, this is part of enjoying who I am! Hey, I was inspired by my famous Grandma Adeline's alleged nude portrait that her sister painted of her. I think its amazing that she did that! What a hip lady! I haven't had my picture taken of just me on purpose, for me, for maybe 12 years. yikes. So, this picture is modest and I can put it up here on my blog and I think its beautiful. Yep, I said it. I think I look pretty good as a 35 year old wife and mom of 5 and that has recently gone crazy.

playing catch up

there is a lot I have said I was going to blog and havent yet. So, I'll skim over the holidays with a few pictures here. :)

We were so very busy and had so very much fun these holidays. It would be less crazy if we didnt have all the girls birthdays in it all as well. Mine is in November, then Char, Bea and Is's birthdays are in Dec. Addy's is in the beginning of January and so its just inevitable it's crazy. I keep telling myself that I wont do a bunch of parties and do a crazy celebration for each of them, but I either get talked into by the entire household, or I do it to myself. :) I am swearing I wont do any parties for this next year!! (lets see how well that works)

Besides the birthdays, we did have a great time on our break. The kids were home for 2 weeks and so was Chris, so we milked up all the time together and had a great time.

I got a new camera and I just am not totally sure I like it yet. I just have to get used to it and it'll take better pictures if I knew about it more, but geezz, I just want a good picture and you wont see all of that here this time. But, it is still totally fun. :)

A few of the cousins at Granny's house! :) THanks for the yummy family dinner!! It's always nice to get together with the Lherons for a quick few hours.

Christmas was good stuff with the kids. Kids and Christmas! Its got to be good. Dinner and Santa's plate of cookies and reading Christ's birth and teaching the kids about the true meaning of the holidays by serving others. All that stuff. :)

We are so proud! We figured out how to make the perfect turkey! YOOHOO! It's only been 12 years of marriage and we are just figuring it out. I give ALL the credit to Chris, but HEY! I took a kickn picture of it.. so yea!

Christmas isnt Christmas with out some kind of yummy desert. So, I made a black forest Chocolate cake (all scratch of course! those are even canned cherries I canned. :))

THE plate of cookies for Santa and his reindeer. Scarce looking now that its on the huge charger plate. Hahah! Oh well, Santa and his wife were eating too many goodies anyway. :)

Spending time enjoying a few gifts. Coloring and some awesome new socks. :)

We had lots of fun just enjoying each other and making us all laugh. :)YAY!

Service(taking dinner to a friend) and Snow (taking forever to get dressed)!

Our awesome friends THe Jeff and Sarah Brightons came to our house for another visit!!! We really enjoy our life long friendship with them. We have a few pictures here of our time playing and playing and playing together! :)

Rachel and Isabel painted together. And then I think they had more fun posing for the pictures. :)

Happy NEW YEARS!! This was the very first picture of the year! We ran outside and yelled and yelled and realized it was still freezing cold! (Isabel is with her friend)

Isabel is 12!

She turned 12 on the 23rd of December

baby Izzy

has grown to a beautiful young woman.

sniff sniff. (her turning 12 has been harder than sending her to Kindergarden!)

We had a great time celebrating with yet again a late night with jammies and movie. Its her all time favorite activity.... party and pjs and movies and friends. :)

just a few friends...


lets snack!

Julius Cesar

Isabel's 6th grade class put on the play of Julius Cesar.

It was really quite entertaining. The kids all had parts and had to memorize TONS of lines. Isabel chose to have a non speaking part, did all the calligraphy for the props and was also the lights guy. :) Its fun to see all the kids that I see when I volunteer or when they are over at our house hanging out (they are too old to play, right) in action, doing their best at something.

This is a picture of the inside of the school on the left wall foyer. The middle and high school art kids have some murals up and are learning some techniques. Its pretty fun going to our awesome charter school.

its been tooo long!

My keyboard got into an accident right after the last post.

KIDS!

They are so expensive! :)

At least this time it was water that fried the keyboard and not bodily fluid. Yep, we've been through a few keyboards.

This one is a loaner keyboard until our nice ergonomically correct one comes soon. I cant type as well on this one, so I don't want to take the time to. But, I have missed sharing! And, I treat this blog like our scrapbook in a way too.

Thankful

This song moved me today. I am afraid I am an amature and don't know how to put the actual song on my blog. If anybody does, let me know. :)

Thankful

by Josh Gorban

Somedays, we forget to look around us,
Somedays, we can't see the joy that surrounds us,
so caught up inside ourselves,
we take when we should give,
so for tonight we pray for,
what we know can be,
and on this day we hope for,
what we still can't see,
It's up to us, to be the change,
and even though we all can still do more,
there's so much to be Thankful for,
look beyond ourselves,
there's so much sorrow,
it's way to late to say, I'll cry tomorrow
each of us must find our truth,
it's so long overdue,
so for tonight we pray for,
what we know can be,

and everyday, we hope for,
what we still can't see,
it's up to us, to be the change,
and even though we all can still do more,
there's so much to be thankful for,
even with our differences,
there is a place were all connected,
each of us can find each others light,
So for tonight, we pray for
what we know can be,
and on this day, we hope for,
what we still can't see,
it's up to us, to be the change,
and even though this world can still do so much more
there's so much to be thankful for.

From Josh Groban's album, Noel

Happy Birthday my Beatrice!!

Baby Beatrice

My sweet Beatrice is 3 today!!

Its tough showing 3 fingers if you never have before! :) but, we almost got it!I know this is blury, but she is soo cute still!!about to open her present last night. :)glued to her gift!! :)

she could hardly sleep last night because HAD to be with Ariel at all times.I threw a tiny party for her today. I envited 1 friend over and we had a tea party. It was awesome!And, here is another cake! :) I think it turned out pretty cute. Bea LOVES it! :)

it's mom's amazing carrot cake recipe! oh gosh, its to die for!

Cut it!

Beatrice wanted her crust cut off her PBJ. I was taking too long to get to her, so she took matters in her own hands and climbed up to the pencil cup and got some scissors and took care of business! :)